Protocol for Enhanced Severe Acute Respiratory Illness and Influenza-Like Illness Surveillance for COVID-19 in Africa

The majority of Member States have sentinel surveillance systems for influenza-like illness (ILI) and SARI and they take part in the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). They can leverage these systems for COVID-19 because they investigate patients with similar clinical presentation to COVID-19.

To support the process of moving towards increased testing of SARI cases, and to better understand the presence of undetected cases among SARI/ILI patients, Africa CDC is supporting Member States to integrate testing for SARS-CoV2 virus into existing national SARI/ILI sentinel surveillance system.